Featured Weddings

KAITLYN + CHAD

I was going to start this post off with how I love living in Nashville and being a photographer, yada yada yada, but let's cut to the chase. I have a confession to make: I get jealous. Like, more often than I would like to admit. Nashville has a lot of photographers, and I hate it, but sometimes I really do get consumed with jealousy. And I hate it.When a friend tells me that they booked this session or that wedding, my initial reaction is that I am truly happy for them, yay, that's exciting! But then (five seconds later) I feel the jealously creep in. So I ask myself, "why I am jealous?". What it really comes down to is how I view fellow photographers. I tend to catch myself viewing them as the competition, and this is a very bad thing. When I view them as my competition, it is only natural that I would become jealous when they are successful. But these aren't just fellow photographers, they are friends. When they are successful (even if I don't know them personally) I should rejoice with them; I should genuinely and fully share in their excitement. Jealousy says, "I don't care about you, I care about me and my business." That's not my heart, and that is not what I want people to feel when they are telling me about their success.We are a community and we all feed off of each other. When someone takes an awesome photo or books a million sessions, instead of becoming jealous, I need to choose to be encouraged and challenged by that. It's actually so great how we can all sharpen each other. For me it can be hard because when I see other people doing awesome things my initial reaction is to feel bad about myself and that I could never do anything as cool as that. Yeah right! I can do awesome things too!Instead of being defeated by someone else's awesome success story and jealous that they did this and that instead of me, I will take that and say, "Wow, if they did that, than I can do this really cool thing too!". Or "Oh wow, I've never seen something like that before. That really inspires me to try new things for myself!". It is a mental game and it's a choice. Don't view your peers as competition. That's stupid. We're all in this together and if we choose to, we can be a great strength to each other, but we have to fight for it, otherwise we will crumble under the weight of jealousy and pride.